My first baby was born in a hospital. Pretty standard story, probably. I woke up at 2 am with terribly painful contractions. I tried to stay in bed and sleep but woke my husband by accident when I jerked around 5 am. We decided to get up and get ready for my scheduled check-up. The contractions were so painful that I had no idea how to handle them. We drove to the doctor's a little early, around 8 am. Driving in the car when you're in labor was horrible! It was a good time to watch the clock so I knew that my contractions were every 2 to 4 minutes. I stumbled up to the Doctor's office and he checked me, reporting that I was 2 cm dilated and sure to have the baby today. But since I was only 2 cm, did I want to go home and labor some more? I did not want to get back in the car and then have to decide when to come back, so I decided to stay in the hospital. He also told me to stop hyperventilating (but didn't offer any suggestions as to how to accomplish this. . . .) I was such a mess that they took me down in a wheelchair to check me into the hospital (which was in the next building over). I had already sent in my paperwork and pre-registered, but still they had to ask me all these questions. My contractions were so intense and painful that I was worried that I was giving the wrong answers, especially when they started trying to ask me questions like, "Does your husband beat you?"

Finally they got me checked in and took me up to the Labor and Delivery ward where my contractions promptly eased up. Luckily they did suggest that I eat something and brought me a tray of french toast which was quite welcome. After that, my contractions slowed way down and were completely unproductive. They finally decided around noon that they should break my waters to speed things up. I had read that I didn't want to do that, but I couldn't remember why, so I let them. (Because it introduces risks of infection to mother and baby, and shortens the labor by an average of 30 minutes, which hardly seems worth all the extra risks to me!) Anyway, they had me lay back and they spent at least 20 minutes trying to hook the waterbag and break it. They finally gave up. After they left my waters did finally break. At that point they decided I needed some rest so they gave me an IV with some drug (Stadol?) in it which eased the pains for about an hour. But they wanted me to sit in a chair while I had it so that labor wouldn't quit as I dozed. My poor husband didn't know what to do for me. He saw that I was asleep and thought about going to find some lunch during this down time, but he was worried he might miss something or I might need him, so he didn't. So he didn't eat all day until after the baby came out either!

After the Stadol wore off, it was painful again. They said it was ok for me to go down the hall to the bathtub with super jets, even though my waters had broken. So we did that and I went from 3 to 10 cm in about 1 1/2 hours. By the end I was begging for an epidural, but they said I was finally dilated enough so they made me get out and walk back to my room. I pushed for about 1 1/2 hours, I think. It was so discouraging! I never had even one urge to push the whole time. Meanwhile they had that stupid electronic fetal monitoring belt around me which was so painful and annoying! The doctor, nurse, and my husband were all trying to encourage me but they ended up really discouraging me. Several times they said, "Look! It's coming! You can feel the head!" and I would reach down and feel only the barest sliver of a head. Finally I did manage to push the baby out. (5:07 pm - 15 hours of labor and no episiotomies, tears, or C-sections. Thank God for small miracles!) Someone had told me that I should ask for pain meds as soon as the baby was out, so I did. They were so busy cleaning her up that they ignored me for a while. Finally they gave me Percoset, which made me so loopy that I could hear every noise in the hospital even when I was asleep, and I couldn't take care of her like I had planned to the first night. Then they wanted me to pee. I don't think I had peed all day and I was so swollen down there that I couldn't so they had to put a catheter in. (My nurse had to go get help because she couldn't get it in!) Then they wanted me to shower and clean up before I went to the Recovery Floor, but I refused. I wanted food and sleep in that order so they sponged me off a little and then I went over to Recovery. My husband went home, I had loopy sleep all night, and Dorothy spent her first night alone in the nursery, with periodic visits to me to nurse under the bright hospital fluorescent lights.

The next day we had a lot of trouble with the nurses. Nobody told us there were extra clothes and diapers in the bassinet box, and then they gave us a hard time when we had to call the nursery to ask for help with a poopy diaper. No one told us that we couldn't hold our child and walk into the hall to ask a question, so they yelled at us when that happened. They told us they were a family friendly hospital and that fathers could spend the night. They didn't mention that fathers had to sleep on a small cot crammed in the room and had to go out of the department to use the bathroom. (Wouldn't want to expose Mom to any germs on her toilet!) Dorothy spent all day with us and we were so thrilled to finally have her! Bedtime came and they had to take her for a check in the nursery. They told us they could watch her for a while while we got some much needed sleep. We thought that sounded okay so off she went to the nursery. Exactly one hour later, we were jolted out of sleep by an extremely unhappy baby! The nursery woman was desperate. She swore that Dorothy had to be hungry because she had tried everything else and she even put a bottle of sugar water on the nightstand for me to use. I said, "OK" and reached out my arms for her. Instantly she fell asleep. The nurse was so mad! She couldn't understand that all Dorothy wanted was the familiar scent of her mother, which she had lived with for the previous nine months. She left in a huff. Of course, then I was left with a baby so traumatized that I couldn't put her down all night. Everytime I tried to put her in the bassinet she woke up and screamed. I couldn't sleep with her in the hospital bed because there was just a bar and it didn't seem safe to me. (Not to mention that everyone had warned us that sleeping with a baby was incredibly dangerous!) So I held her all night and watched her. Every so often she would open one eye and check to make sure that I was still there. Needless to say, we were quite happy to go home the next morning.

Now all in all, I was very lucky and had a pretty sucessful birth with a great outcome. But as the months went by, I became increasingly more frustrated with my experience. Since Dorothy wouldn't nap unless I laid there with her, I started sneaking in books to read after she had fallen asleep. That is when I really learned about homebirth and how safe and successful it could be. The idea percolated around and I mentioned it to my husband several times, but I knew I was in trouble when I got completely offended by a book my mom had sent about polar bears having to go to the hospital for their birth. Polar Bears don't need to go to the hospital! That was when I realized that I would have to do a homebirth. And the second that I knew I was pregnant for sure, I called up my friends and found a midwife who had her own practice about 1 1/2 hours away from us. (We were living in NY state where midwives are allowed to practice their craft!) Unfortunately she couldn't meet the three requirements that our insurance company wanted for them to pay for the birth (she didn't have the $100K liability insurance policy) so we did have to pay out of pocket, but it was definitely worth it, and we were lucky enough to be able to set aside pre-tax dollars in a medical savings account to cover the birth.

So I got pregnant, visited the midwife several times, and another woman who was a nurse and training to be a midwife came to my house and did most of my check-ups in my living room. We lined up a back-up physician in case anything went wrong. (My previous OB refused to do it because he believed homebirths were unsafe and when I questioned him about it, the best he could do was point me to an abstract of a study in WA that was full of holes and claimed that homebirthed babies had "lower Apgar scores," as if that were the most critical factor in a birth!)

The day I gave birth, I woke up. I don't remember when I knew that the contractions were different than usual, but I noticed that my belly was as hard as a basketball throughout my shower so I was pretty suspicious. We were babysitting a friend's daughter for her while she went to orchestra rehearsals. (She was a Katrina victim and was in town as a sub that week. Her daughter was the same age as Dorothy, 3 years.) My husband was on spring break that week and didn't have to work. After my shower, I asked him to drive us to the library for story hour because I didn't think it was very safe for me to drive if I was really in labor. (I wasn't sure it was full labor yet since every labor is different and I knew some can go on for days or be false labor.) So we went to storyhour and I was so thrilled to be acting so normal when I was in labor! I felt so cool! After storyhour we went home and my husband picked up some lunch. We fed the girls and then each took one to get them to nap. Lying down was not comfortable for me, so I snuck out as soon as Dorothy had nursed and was asleep. I went out to the living room where my contractions happened every 8 minutes, or every 4, or every time I stood up, sat down, went up or down stairs, or changed direction or activity in any way at all. They were much more bearable than they had been the first time. I tried lots of techniques that I had read about—visualization, deep breathing, etc. Our friend came home from rehearsal and offered to clear out since I was in labor, but we asked her to stay and take care of Dorothy instead. (Instant babysitting! Which I had been worried about since my mother-in-law wasn't coming until the next afternoon.) Dorothy was enthralled with her daughter and the two had lots of fun, not even noticing all the hollering and activity happening upstairs!

The assistant midwife was scheduled to arrive at my house for another check-up at 5:30 so we didn't bother to call anyone. When she arrived she was quite surprised that I was in labor but I knew the baby wasn't coming yet. We talked and decided that I would eat some dinner, have some wine to relax, try to rest or nap a little, and then maybe have the baby later. So she called the other midwife to tell her our plan and then she was going to go to her yoga class that she usually went to after my check-up. Then she decided that maybe she should check my dilation first and it turned out I was 6 cm! I was amazed and she immediately changed her plans. Suddenly my husband was fixing dinner for 4 adults and 2 3-year-olds because I wouldn't let him leave the house to go get take-out food. We sat down for dinner. I ate half my plate of spaghetti (I was very hungry!) but then my legs started shaking really badly. I asked my midwife if that was normal. She said, "Hmmm. Maybe I should go get some things set up."

So she and my husband ran around the house trying to find the birth supplies I had accumulated. The girls ate and then ran downstairs to play. I sat in that chair and labored. The contractions were definitely getting more intense and I was very appreciative when my husband would run by and put his hands on my shoulder during them. Eventually I decided that I should go try to pee again so I waddled to the little bathroom just off our bedroom. There was only enough room in there for my husband to stand next to me while I sat on the toilet. I heard the other midwife arrive and some low murmuring between the two midwives, but otherwise it was all about me and those amazingly intense sensations. It got so intense that I couldn't cope unless my husband's hand was on my shoulder. Finally I decided that my thighs were going to sleep on the toilet and I needed to stand up. So I did and suddenly my whole body whooshed into a squat position and boy did I have this overwhelming amazingly powerful urge to push! By this time I was chattering away and I exclaimed, "Wow! I think I have to push!" The midwives suggested I come out of the bathroom so they could reach me which I did. There was this mad rush for a few seconds where we all worked to get me into a kneeling position on the floor at the foot of my bed with pillows under each knee and then I was pushing and he was coming out just fine!

When he was about halfway out, the contractions suddenly quit and I thought out loud that I could take a break. (I'd read that sometimes contractions quitting is a signal from your body to take a break.) The midwives told me that I had to finish (I think his cord was a little tight or something) so I did. Suddenly he was out and so slippery and there was blood and umbilical cord everywhere and he wouldn't stop screaming for what seemed like an eternity! I finally asked if he was okay (I had some romantic notion about the baby coming out all peaceful and welcomed into the world at home) but the midwives assured me he was fine. Turned out that he had presented with his fist over his head and he was bigger than his sister had been so I ended up with a little bit of labial tearing. They offered to stitch me up and I sat there on my very own bed cuddling him while they did that. Meanwhile, my husband went downstairs to tell our daughter the news. Gabriel was born at 9:05 pm (about 12 hours of labor since my morning shower). Dorothy came up and met him and then went to bed. It was so amazing to sit there in my own house with no nurses bossing me around! I was so happy about how the birth had gone and that we didn't have to figure out the whole sleeping-with-the-baby-in-the-hospital game again or the how-to-nurse-the-three-year-old-while-staying-overnight-at-the-hospital game. And having a midnight snack in the kitchen before the midwives went home was wonderful too. I couldn't have asked for a better second birth experience and I am so grateful that I found homebirth and my wonderful midwives to help me.

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